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Terra Nullius: Who Owns the Skies? w/ Julia Powles · Computer Says Maybe

• 0:00
  Alix: Welcome to Computer Says maybe this is your host, Alex Dunn, and in this episode we are going to our next terrain. This guy with Dr. Julia Powles, who is an academic at the University of Western Australia. She does lots of cool stuff. This is one project she's working on. If you haven't seen her work, look her up.
• 0:01
  Just like wanting to do something seems to be enough to make that thing happen. So we're gonna unpack what research they've done in Australia, what community resistance is happening to combat the rollout of these drone highways in the sky, I guess, for lack of a better word, and sort of what it looks like to fight this fake, inevitable future thing that happens when there's a bunch of venture capital that goes to a project.
• 0:02
  And one of the areas we've researched for the last six, seven years is delivery drones. They fascinate me because they are such a visceral incursion into our lives. The policy space around them is really. Emergent and needs really critical thinking. I think it challenges lots of our ideas about tech inevitability and resistance, and it's been a really exciting area to work on.
• 0:03
  Uh, which having studied how Google expands into areas like health and cities, uh, and education, I think it's a really warring prospect what this particular company will do when it has control of their space.
• 0:04
  Really embraced the food delivery market. It's lots of satellite cities and a sprawling population, people with backyards where these drones can deliver delivery. Drones are one of those features of our collective imagination of the future from the Jetsons to. Contemporary ideas of how do we take a military technology and make it a civilian one.
• 0:05
  Julia: absolute nightmare,
• 0:06
  And then in a more serious way, since 2017, they've been working in, ironically, the Australian capital, which is where they have shut down, and in a more remote region in Queensland. Delivery drones, I think, have been marketed in various jurisdictions as being able to deliver on essential goods. So whether it's blood supply, pharmaceuticals, medical defibrillators, and so on.
• 0:07
  Hot coffee. It is not a prospect at all that you could currently get a coffee delivery by road. And so the companies that are looking at aerial logistics are thinking that it is the use case. The killer app as the CEO of Manna says, is delivering cups of coffee in a few minutes for a few dollars to a family that might order several coffees, some pastries, and those.
• 0:08
  How do you navigate those dynamics? How do you navigate the dynamics when you have a child that is particularly vulnerable to noise? How do you navigate the reality of walking in your local park? Where there's disturbance to insects, birds and wildlife from these drones. The story of resistance really parallels.
• 0:09
  It's really interesting. Their metric of community tolerance as they describe it, is the number of complaints received. And I don't know about you, but it takes me a fair while before I get to the point of actually registering a complaint, and it doesn't mean it's not. Totally annoying and totally intrusive.
• 0:10
  And then they. Essentially write these love letters from cities to these companies. Come develop your operations. In our city delivery operation is seen as just an extension of your average warehouse, notwithstanding that it's gonna suddenly put these vehicles in the sky. At the order of up to 10,000 drones a day over a city, that's when the economics actually work for these companies in the moment, they're all lost leaders.
• 0:11
  Well, ironically, when we went and met with Logan City Council, which proudly wears the T-shirt for being. The drone delivery capital of the world with a few hundred thousand drone deliveries. It's a outer suburb of the city of Brisbane. We met with the council officials and in an act that I think they thought was destined to impress, they ordered a single bottle of water packet of what we call in Australia, lollies or candy.
• 0:12
  When we then followed some of the drones to try to identify where they were all coming from, there was initially a warehouse operation where essentially a really grim setup where you have stacks of consumer goods inside a a warehouse. You have some guys making coffee and a windowless shed, and then sending these drones out on a hot roof.
• 0:13
  I don't know, like the acceleration of consumerism at a time when basically the primary conversation is us barreling towards climate catastrophe. Like I kind of thought, if I'm honest, like two or three years ago that they would be a. VC reality check about the 15 minute to an hour delivery thing so that like I wanna get something delivered same day as a value proposition.
• 0:14
  That would transform society, that if you applied risk capital to it, that that would ultimately make you money, but also be beneficial. But we've like lost the first part of the formula. We're just like seeking a hundred x returns and then getting this like very shallow endorphin hit business model strategy.
• 0:15
  Particular background in areas like health, where they partnered with the NHS and other major public health providers with cities, and the whole sidewalk story that you've spoken about with Bianca. The move into drones fascinated me because I don't think you have to explain the technology to people.
• 0:16
  When it has the kind of road requirements of vehicles and drivers, and what the drones do is take down to a few percentage points of that cost, the actual cost of delivery. My worry about it is, can our consumer impulse for indulgence, can we inhibit that in any way? Because the net result is that for your convenience of getting a coffee.
• 0:17
  Two young parents who were concerned about their children and their neighbors, and they managed to band together, I think, against the core intrusion of these products, which isn't, oh look, just make them a bit quieter or a bit smaller, and then we can tolerate them. It's, we do not wanna have our skies.
• 0:18
  Is it something that is. Literally is the air on which we depend and on which whole habitats depend? Is it something that we actually should refuse to, which is my perspective at scale, build roads in the sky, which is very much the vision of these companies. It doesn't mean we don't have incidental, occasional, necessary uses of delivery drones here in Australia for things like shark spotting or water bombing for wildfires.
• 0:19
  And I was like, oh my God. Like guys, like what? What is this? You're seeing like expert after expert, after expert saying this, you've committed a felony. The skies need to be clear for the purposes of planes that are dropping water bombs on the city. And basically by doing this, you're essentially putting those missions at risk.
• 0:20
  Julia: Do it just your, your mention around the fires. One of the images that's absolutely stayed with me in studying drones is I think from 2021 in Southern California, and it's an image on a beach of 3000 abandoned eggs. When a rogue drone crashed in a ecological reserve, I think there were turns abandoned nesting, abandoning these 3000 birds.
• 0:21
  So will they drop out of the sky? They're not interested in what are they doing with those drones? And we found this in Europe now and in Australia, where commercial drone operators are getting licenses to fly. From seven or eight in the morning until nine at night doing continuous delivery next to takeout stores.
• 0:22
  At the moment, there isn't solid rules and regulations that you can point to that speak to a lot of the concerns that we have in urban environments. Like how do we appropriately differentiate residential neighborhoods from commercial ones? How do we appropriately manage the intrusions of noise and other impositions on, on good neighborly life?
• 0:23
  Julia: Yeah. And then the companies sort of think about things like building corridors, essentially rebuilding highway infrastructure. Google Wing has spoken about its operations in these terms of elevated highways in the sky, which would then reduce the degree of overflight of certain neighborhoods. So then we all live under an overpass.
• 0:24
  To be able to. Break those rules. Essentially the reason they're able to break those rules is they can demonstrate safety, they can demonstrate that those drones won't fall out of the sky. But of course, none of the other features that we think are so essential and actually people expect that someone will be looking out for.
• 0:25
  Alix: Yeah. I mean, and I can imagine in a tech. Adult brain that you would be like in the same way that now there's an expectation that you have a digital device. And so we're able to like nominally save costs on physical stuff.
• 0:26
  'cause then you won't need cars. It feels a bit like the Zuckerberg Metaverse mind breakdown, where it's like, I need to have a paradigm shifting idea. So any of my ideas I have to frame as paradigm shifting. And then if they're paradigm shifting, I can basically subvert any rules about them because. I can then make the case as to why you've just gotta get on board, or it's like on you for not bringing about the future that makes everybody happier.
• 0:27
  And it reminds me of that famous EM Foster short story. The machine stops. You know, where we think 1910, where we're all living in this honeycomb of houses just connected to the machine, and the machine serves every material and intellectual need. We gradually become these translucent blobs, giving lessons to the world through our devices and receiving them and receiving goods.
• 0:28
  'cause now it'll be hot and no one will see you. And the what it does to. I think any of our collective spaces is really scarier. Friend's son had a, his 15th birthday to a pizza joint last year and was telling me that they sat for an hour, this group of increasingly rowdy 15 year olds, while the kitchen was just pushing out pizzas over and over, and eventually went up to the owner and said, we're our pizzas.
• 0:29
  I think Ma basically all of them are hub and spoke. Now where? Fly Delta. You gotta go to Atlanta. Fly. What's the Australian airline? Qantas you gotta go to. Sydney, Melbourne. Yep. Sydney, Melbourne. Yep. Yeah. The dream of these people is that it's a hub and spoke system where basically we stay, I don't know, like the centralized thing is, like the tiny transaction we wanna have, and it's always a direct line from us to that thing.
• 0:30
  Julia: I don't wanna transact all day long. And so the way this is spoken of by those in the industry and that gets so you can listen to these guys for an hour, talk about economics and utilization of drones and never once speak to the total extraction of and violent extraction, I'd say, of what was otherwise.
• 0:31
  I think it's totally dystopian. And I also think the wonderful bit of doing the research in this is actually, many people think it is dystopian and we have stories of collective resistance and they have been successful. So it's not all lost,
• 0:32
  For example, in this one, I had anticipated what was happening in the drone space. As I say, six, seven years ago, I do not wanna talk about it in a way that activates that total consumer drive. I, at the same time want and am worried that those who are making the decisions, which is essentially a closed cabal of policy makers and industry to not have any kind of shakeup.
• 0:33
  What is frankly a waste of resources at a time when it's what we can least afford without also bringing in the, oh, well, maybe this is good for jobs and for the environment and for demand. Because disappointingly, we have embraced the food delivery ecosystem, even if I think it should have completely fizzled out.
• 0:34
  And then it's just not gonna be as nice as you're making it seem. And the fact that you're not willing to articulate the ways it could be a problem, the ways it could be beneficial, things you don't know about it, you're pitching it as like you're so sure. I feel like people are kind of getting wise to.
• 0:35
  So Beni was this first town where drone delivery commenced in Australia. And what I loved about how they organized is they really articulated. Resistance to the idea of technological inevitability that just because you can develop these products and just because you can make a market out of it, it does not mean that we need to live with it.
• 0:36
  It would require testing. What impact do they have on wildlife, which the city had outsourced to the vendor. They said, where is the procurement of these services if they're to be used at C scale? And they organized for a number of years and were able to assemble a, a legislative inquiry, parliamentary inquiry.
• 0:37
  Cities have less. Community, structures of organization resistance, much lower socioeconomic environments where you have a distribution of, you know, I think a public health crisis already in terms of the availability of affordable food they're rolling out in those cities at scale, which is why we have places like Logan and Dallas-Fort Worth really trying to scale up food delivery.
• 0:38
  And I think there's something about that learning cycle that happens. And what's interesting is what I'm hearing you say is that like starting in Australia might have been, or in communities like. Bony thumb, I looked Ben Benni, Benni. That like starting there is interesting 'cause then they learn a bunch of stuff.
• 0:39
  Whether it's New York or Perth, Western Australia, cities are absolutely. Desperate to be innovators and absolutely fearful that if they don't make it attractive to companies that are developing the next wave of technology, no matter how I think offensive it is to public sensibility, they will go above and beyond to make that possible.
• 0:40
  Like about where we live, we need those who we are expecting to stand for how we live, to actually step up. It activates, I think the only level of governance that we really can rely on in these times, which is. Building from the local and the local way. We don't let the nuisance of a 24 hour lawnmower go.
• 0:41
  And they were like, oh, you know, but these things happen. And we got in this really funny standoff where I was like, no, they, they don't, like, there's a, there's actually a rule that says you can't do construction on Sundays. And they were like, no, no, but these things happen. And I was like, no, they don't. And I was like, if I need to, I, I will just report you and I'll let the person that owns this place know that you're doing this.
• 0:42
  The race to invest those resources to build that legislative protection from individuals having to negotiate and advocate on their behalf. Like I shouldn't have to complain. It should just be people should just follow the rules. But right now there are none.
• 0:43
  You don't get to just put a road wherever you wanna, a road. You don't get to put a road in the sky wherever you wanna put a road. It's prohibited until you can actually make the case for why that is in the public interest. And I think if we thought of our cities. Through that lens that's actually much more aligned to collective aspiration and expectation of the city environment.
• 0:44
  And then you were like, Uber Eats. It's really driving this whole other like, oh man, I got, I got a whole, I gotta, I gotta hold, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta hold back. You gotta hold, hold. Parallel. Pun. Yeah. Yeah. So if the drones have kind of reached escape velocity, or at least there's enough moneyed interests, yeah.
• 0:45
  Google really doesn't see itself as being the deliverer of the future. It sees itself as providing. The platform for deliveries of all types, whether it's package delivery or fast food delivery. So it, it's very much an infrastructure of the sky that has been developed. What do we do? I think we first remember that actually it's already been resisted.
• 0:46
  Part of the what that rescues, I think is a vision where drones can be part of our. Technological imagining and future, but for necessary, not indulgence applications. So I'd put in the bucket of necessary applications in remote regions. I do think there's a real case to be made for medical suppliers by drone.
• 0:47
  Drivers, the delivery drone is, you know, a fraction of the cost. That, to me, seems like it would enable a consumer future for these drones. And so then the other piece that we have to activate is, well, what are the rules that we expect to be in play if safety is not enough? And there are so many other considerations from the environment to privacy, to just the visual and noise pollution of these objects.
• 0:48
  Alix: And I feel generally like joined up movements of resistance and clear articulation from communities about what they want, but also like more empowerment of local policy makers to know that if the rules haven't yet been written, that doesn't mean companies get to dictate how they ultimately are.
• 0:49
  I think it's so essential to confront the false equivalents arguments. So there's this argument made, well these are. An environmentally friendly way of doing delivery, but this assumes that delivery is a constant and increasing demand as opposed to, I think, and hope a blip in our VC-backed fantasies of convenience.
• 0:50
  Above us. Again, I think really once you sit with it, not something that I think you could say with any conviction is the desire of any place I've ever lived. I, I have to add one little piece, which is, yeah, I do. When we engage with the federal government about, I. Its consultation process for rolling out new drone policy, which was to create a nationally harmonized system for drone operators, you know, on the promise of economic development.
• 0:51
  Alix: Yeah. I feel like policy makers are out of practice and actually Sure. Are doing their jobs. Yeah. Nothing like well-resourced, uh, lobbying arms that are willing to write policy for you to make you a little bit lazy. Well,
• 0:52
  That's my takeaway. Um, but I hope it was interesting and I hope also for those of you that listened to the interview with Heather Allier. That you're already starting to see some interesting connections and get some brain stimulation about what we can learn when we think about laws of space, what we can learn when we think about laws of the sky, and kind of how this all joins up into an interesting way of thinking about governance around technology more generally. Thanks to Georgia Iacovou and Prathm Juneja for helping structure this conversation as ever. And Sarah Myles, who does the amazing audio things she does to make everything sound good. Even when I do a bad job managing my own immediate surrounds, uh, she seems to make it, I don't know. Sound good? Thank you, Sarah. And with that, we will see you next week. As a reminder, if there's someone you know and love that works on the sea, we're looking for someone who can help us explore. That terrain. So get in touch. We dropped an email in the show notes and we'll see you next time.